Talk:Intelligent design controversy

From Conservapedia

"In fact, evolutionists have no answer to ID's arguments and therefore refuse to deal forthrightly with it's proponents."

ID eventually comes down to a godlike figure, which is supernatural, science deals with natural phenomena, and thus ID is not science. Science has no arguements to "A creator designed us." because it is impossible to refute. No matter what evidence there is for evolution, "A creator designed us" can still be said. There is no way to disprove it, it relies on the supernatural.

As for dealing with it's proponents, the major push of intelligent design seems to rest far more on trying to find fault with evolution, as opposed to offering good decent evidence (such a signature saying "Made in heaven" "Intelligence Inside" etc etc). Now I'm not complaining about this. Irreducible complexity on the molecular levels is a superb attack on evolution, and absolutely scientific in it's approach. But don't mistake a good attack on evolution, with any sort of positive evidence for any other approach. Pushing scientists to think up feasible routes for these moleculer devices to evolve is excellent work. You cannot expect them to come up with answers instantly, but after time to think, consider and examine, these problems reach plausible solutions.

If you are talking about a general refusal to debate intelligent designists, it's not suprising, an ID proponent can throw a large number of molecular devices at a single scientist who is perhaps an expert in one of these areas, and even then would require a period of time, and access to materials to work out an acceptable path. So in the debate it appears that the scientist is lost for words, where in fact he just can't give you the answer like that. It's like me asking the non-savants of you out there whats the square root of 3042894.124 and expecting an answer immediately whilst you aren't allowed access to a calculating device.

Now I'm not going to bother editing the page, since I know it would merely be reverted, but i felt the need to point out the necessary Raggs 10:59, 8 April 2008 (EDT)

ID opponents generally pretend that they "don't get the point", but this is simply because to address what ID is saying would be the first of a series of lost battles which would end in their utter defeat. The comment above exemplifies this trend.

ID does not point to any godlike figure but makes the point that natural causes alone cannot account for the design of complex organisms, whether organs or cells. Materialism has no argument to account for the appearance of design for anything for complicated than salt crystals or snowflakes. "It evolved that way, and designs that can't compete are weeded out."

Materialists dismiss the appearance of design because their philosophical assumptions preclude any alternative. To distract attention from the weakness of basis of their atheism, they pretend that ID's anti-evolutionary critique is a front for Creationism. My advice to them is the same as what Raggs wrote above: "But don't mistake a good attack on evolution, with any sort of positive evidence for any other approach." ID is not an argument for creation; rather it is an argument against evolution.

It is because atheists and materialists don't want their arguments to be examined that they imprison, expel or fire anyone who dares challenge them. In the marketplace of ideas, their product would not sell, so they insist on having a monopoly.

Evolution cannot account for molecular devices. The rules of the "game" state that if you can't show how gradual changes could accumulate, then your theory doesn't hold water. It is the irreducible complexity of the eye and the flagellum, among many other examples, which show that natural forces alone are insufficient to account for the design of complex organs and cells.

By the way, a square root can be calculated without a machine, using procedures known to mathematicians centuries before the invention of electronic calculators. So "can't explain it" really does mean "the theory simply is no good"; see theory and fact. --Ed PoorTalk 11:15, 8 April 2008 (EDT)

"ID eventually comes down to a godlike figure, which is supernatural, science deals with natural phenomena, and thus ID is not science": This is wrong in two respects. First, although you are correct that ID eventually comes down to a god figure, other immediate (hypothetical) possibilities include aliens. They are not supernatural, so ID is within the realm of science.

Second, science only dealing with the natural does not preclude it from inferring a designer. Archaeologists find stone artifacts which they can determine are stone tools, fashioned by an intelligent being, and do not have to identify or study that being in order to come to that conclusion. Concluding that life had an intelligent designer is exactly the same thing in principle, and that designer possibly or probably being God does not prevent science from reaching that conclusion. However, that designer probably being God is a strong motive for misotheists to reject Intelligent Design—for religious reasons!

It is because atheists and materialists don't want their arguments to be examined that they imprison, expel or fire anyone who dares challenge them. Buwha? Who's gone to JAIL for blaspheming against the Gospel of Darwin?! Most of the time, us materialists prefer to just point and laugh. I do hope you're not talking about Kent Hovind (who went to prison for tax fraud), or Al York (who stabbed a man to death....for arguing with him about evolution).

Intelligent Design is NOT a "scientific theory". It makes no useful predictions, proposes no experiments. It only exists as a rather transparent attempt to get Creationism back into schools, where they think it belongs. And the courts have decided it fails at that, too.

I can't at the moment think of anyone going to jail, but otherwise see Suppression of alternatives to evolution. Your claim about predictions and experiments is disputed, not self-evident truth, and your claim about the reason for its existence is rhetoric. The Talk.Origins explanations of the flagellum and the eye are just-so stories, not scientific descriptions. Philip J. Rayment 12:02, 8 April 2008 (EDT)

Gulik, are you trying to change the subject? ID says that evolution can't explain design, and you veer off into a quibble about whether my generalization about atheists and materialists applies to all cases of dispute about ID. That is specious reasoning, and it has no place on an article discussion page. Save it for the our Debate Topics, if you plan to stay around.

More to the point, you may already be aware of American scholars who have been fired from their jobs for - as you put it - "blaspheming against the Gospel of Darwin". Perhaps I should assign you to google this up and add it to Expelled.

Is the standard for a scientific theory that it must make predictions? Then how about plate tectonics? What predictions does it make? More to the point, name 3 predictions that the theory of evolution makes. Then explain what tests were conducted to see if those predictions came true.

Experiment to falsify the currently-accepted model of evolution: Dig up a fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex that died from choking to death on a Homo Sapiens. There. Any other area with blatantly anachronistic fossils (such as modern birds mixed in with Trilobites, flowers in the Silurian age, etc.) would do the trick as well. Conversely, you could also disprove evolution with that old Creationist canard, a cat 'evolving' into a rabbit in one generation. So would verifiable proof of Lamarckian evolution--the inheritance of acquired traits.

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Evolution has been the basis of many predictions. For example:

Darwin predicted, based on homologies with African apes, that human ancestors arose in Africa. That prediction has been supported by fossil and genetic evidence (Ingman et al. 2000).

Theory predicted that organisms in heterogeneous and rapidly changing environments should have higher mutation rates. This has been found in the case of bacteria infecting the lungs of chronic cystic fibrosis patients (Oliver et al. 2000).

Predator-prey dynamics are altered in predictable ways by evolution of the prey (Yoshida et al. 2003).

Ernst Mayr predicted in 1954 that speciation should be accompanied with faster genetic evolution. A phylogenetic analysis has supported this prediction (Webster et al. 2003).

Several authors predicted characteristics of the ancestor of craniates. On the basis of a detailed study, they found the fossil Haikouella "fit these predictions closely" (Mallatt and Chen 2003).

Evolution predicts that different sets of character data should still give the same phylogenetic trees. This has been confirmed informally myriad times and quantitatively, with different protein sequences, by Penny et al. (1982).

Insect wings evolved from gills, with an intermediate stage of skimming on the water surface. Since the primitive surface-skimming condition is widespread among stoneflies, J. H. Marden predicted that stoneflies would likely retain other primitive traits, too. This prediction led to the discovery in stoneflies of functional hemocyanin, used for oxygen transport in other arthropods but never before found in insects (Hagner-Holler et al. 2004; Marden 2005).

Plate tectonics was uncertain as recently as the 1960s, but evidence in its favor has become overwhelming:

Plate motions are measured directly (Davidson et al. 1997).

The eastern edge of the continental shelves of North and South America fit closely (within 50 km) with the western continental shelves of Africa and Europe (Bishop 1981). The Mid-Atlantic Ridge has the same shape.

Plant and animal fossil distributions, geological formations, and indications of ancient climate match up in Africa and South America as if the continents once fit together (Davidson et al. 1997).

When new rocks are formed, they record the earth's current magnetic field, which reverses occasionally. The magnetic field pattern recorded in the sea floor rocks shows bands mirrored across a spreading center (Bishop 1981; Davidson et al. 1997). (See also Magnetic reversals.)

Paleomagnetic studies show different polar wandering on different continents, indicating that the continents moved relative to one another (Bishop 1981; Davidson et al. 1997).

Oceanic sediments are young and thin, indicating that sea basins are relatively young (Graham 1981).

Hot spots leave trails such as volcanic island chains as the plates move over them (Davidson et al. 1997).

(More from talkorigins. Sorry for the unoriginality, but I'm on my lunch break.)

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As for Expelled--I'd want a biologist who taught Creationism moved to a non-teaching position for roughly the same reason I'd rather not be operated on by a doctor who rejected modern medicine in favor of the Four Humor theory of treatment.

Hope this helps you understand where I'm coming from, even it if is all a flimsy tissue of rationalizations over my seething hatred of God and America fnord.

To add since this was removed from the original Intelligent design talk page during the moves of the article...

The International Society for Science and Religion (ISSR) says that “intelligent design” is neither sound science nor good theology. Intelligent Design theorists do not have proper research programmes to make their points. In fact, what they believe is against science, according to the seven scientists who prepared the statement for the ISSR, a scholarly body devoted to dialogue between science and world faiths.
The whole of the society’s membership, many of whom are Christian, were involved in a consultation about the statement. The ISSR says it “greatly values modern science, while deploring efforts to drive a wedge between science and religion.”

Whereas Gulik provided much research to support evolution, Intelligent Design has yet to produce research or a mechanism outside of the mechanisms of evolution to support their hypothesis. Something to add is that most new concepts of science begin in the collegiate academic environment where they undergo testing and verification before being trickled down to the general public and secondary and primary education systems, therefore intelligent design is suspect of circumventing this practice do to a failure of meeting the standards necessary to be a competing theory in the aforementioned environment, which leads many to conclude that the proponents of intelligent design are trying to indoctrinate instead of allowing the application of rational debate for defense of their hypothesis. The major concern is that by allowing the circumvention of the testing and debate in the academic environment sets a standard for other untested, non qualified concepts to be taught with a scientific label. I personally feel it is fine for intelligent design to be taught in a theological setting not a scientific one. This debate with evolution is a bit unreasonable due to evolution's stance in the biological sciences, if intelligent design wanted to replace evolution then it should have followed the standard, much like string theory has been for the past 20 years. This motivation is also suspect since when has a scientific concept not taken more than 10 years to reach the public? Why push intelligent design on school children with less than 10 years of development, let alone testing and research? Like I said the motivations behind the intelligent design proponents are suspect.
--Able806 16:44, 8 April 2008 (EDT)

Gulik5, can you unequivocally demonstrate that "Dig[ging] up a fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex that died from choking to death on a Homo Sapiens" would falsify evolution? Because I don't think it would. Rather, the evolutionists would simply (and finally) admit that T-rex must have survived longer than they have previously claimed, and not admit to any falsification of evolution itself at all. For more on this, see falsifiability of evolution and User:Philip J. Rayment/Creationism.

I don't find the Talk.Origins examples convincing. Some of them appear to assume evolution in order to demonstrate evolution. For example, human evolution in Africa assumes that humans have evolved, but that has not been demonstrated. Also, some of the examples give too little information to judge them.

I also suspect that some of the "evolutionary" predictions have little if anything to do with evolution at all. That is, the same predictions could also be made by creationists. This likely applies to the one about high mutation rates, for example.

Certainly the plate tectonics example falls into the category above. Plate tectonics was originally proposed by a creationist, partly on the basis of the account in Genesis. And the scientist with what is acknowledged as the best computer simulation of plate tectonics is a young-Earth creationist (who believes that it happened quickly, during Noah's Flood). So, plate tectonics is not an evolutionary prediction at all, but a prediction made by both camps.

And this highlights a very large part of the creation/evolution/ID controversy: The evolutionists have almost no idea just what creationists (and ID proponents) actually propose, so a large part of their "rebuttal" of creationism and ID is straw-man arguments, pointless arguments, and plain nonsense. The fact that you repeated this nonsense here shows that you don't know what you are talking about either, so have little credibility in this discussion. Your comment about creationist biologists is more such nonsense. Creationist biologists accept all the biology that an evolutionist accepts, but disagrees on how living things came about. That is, they agree on the observable facts, not on the unobserved history. So comparisons with doctors who don't accept modern observations are totally invalid and merely show your ignorance of the issue.

And by the way, one of your points copied from Talk.Origins, the magnetic striping bit, provides an example of a successful creationist prediction (see here).

The ISSR statement is nonsense too. It says that "Intelligent Design theorists do not have proper research programmes to make their points", ignoring that because ID is not considered science, nobody will give them funds to have such research programs! Thus "ID is not science > therefore it is not funded for research > therefore, having no research, it is not science" = circular argument.

Further, it says that it "[deplores] efforts to drive a wedge between science and religion", ignoring that ID is not aiming to do that, and in fact the ISSR is doing that by trying to argue that the two are totally unrelated.

Able806 omits mentioning that many new ideas in science are rejected by the majority initially, and only after fighting against the establishment for many years do the new ideas become accepted. And because the establishment is against these new ideas, the ideas have to be promoted in other avenues than the normal academic avenues. Again, it is a circular argument that ID is not scientific because it's not discussed in the "proper" channels, but it's not allowed to be discussed in the proper channels because it's not scientific!

As for claims of indoctrination, this is a case of when pointing the finger at someone, you have three pointing back at yourself. It's the evolutionists that have a stranglehold on the school system, with even efforts to tell students that they should keep an open mind about evolution being taken to court and stopped. When evolutionists prevent students being told that they should keep an open mind, they are indoctrinating. When they then accuse their opposition of indoctrination, they are being hypocrites. And Able806 has the gall to question the motives of ID proponents!

Gulik5, can you unequivocally demonstrate that "Dig[ging] up a fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex that died from choking to death on a Homo Sapiens" would falsify evolution? Because I don't think it would.

Yeah, it pretty well would. It would mean that modern science is dead wrong about fossil formation, sedimentation, the timeline of Earth's history, when humanity evolved, and about twenty other things. Alternately, it COULD just mean someone developed a time-machine and wasn't very cautious, which would be equally huge, but more a matter for physicists. But, since on Planet Conservapedia, scientists are just the High Priests of the First Atheistic Church of Darwin, I'm sure you just expect them to take a gravel-crusher to the evidence, and burn as heretics anyone who claims to have seen it fnord.

Let me turn that around on you, Phil: What would it take for YOU to admit that Creationism/ID was wrong? Preferrably something scientists could conceivably come up with, short of God Himself coming down and saying "DON'T BLAME ME FOR YOUR BADLY DESIGNED CARCASSES, I HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT."?

If the IDers don't have any funding, who keeps bankrolling groups like the Creation Museum?

If you want scientists to tolerate 'alternatiove theories', Come up with some. Velikovsky-style efforts to rewrite the laws of physics in order to treat the Book of Genesis as a science textbook don't convince anyone who isn't already a True Believer. --Gulik5 23:13, 9 April 2008 (EDT)

You've continued to demonstrate that you don't understand the creation/evolution issue, yet you keep talking about it under the self-delusion that you do.

But to start with the first point, you have not convinced me at all how it would falsify evolution (which you wrongly equate with science). You don't explain, for example, how it would mean that science was wrong about fossil formation, sedimentation, or those "twenty other things". The only thing that I could see that would be upset that you mentioned are "the timeline of Earth's history", and then only one little bit of that, and possibly "when humanity evolved".

If human and dinosaur fossils were found together, the only thing it would mean (other than explanations such as intrusive burials, etc.) is that either (a) dinosaurs survived well past their 65-million-years-ago extinction, or (b) that humans evolved 65 million years ago, not around a million years ago. The first option is far more plausible, so I believe that evolutionists would simply claim that at least some dinosaurs survived until much more recent times, such as around one million years ago. Now the question is, how would some dinosaurs surviving until relatively recent times invalidate evolution? We already have examples of living things that supposedly went extinct around 65 million years ago turning up alive (Coelacanth, Wollemi Pine), and evolution didn't miss a beat. What real difference would it make if a T-rex was found in million-year old sediments? I asked if you could unequivocally demonstrate how this would falsify evolution. You haven't even come close to demonstrating it. All you've done is restate the claim in other ways.

Therefore your derisive comments about "Planet Conservapedia" are nothing more than ad hominem abuse, seemingly in an attempt to divert attention from your lack of an answer.

The creation museum was built by creationists, not ID proponents. But yes, it's true that creationists and ID proponents have some funds available, but are not funded for research like evolutionists are. The only funds they have are donations from private individuals, which are a drop in the bucket compared to evolutionary funding. But if you are suggesting that creationists and ID proponents have done no research at all, then you are wrong, as with the extremely limited funding they have, they have done some research. Sometimes at their own cost.

Again, your derogatory comments about rewriting the laws of physics show that you have no idea what you are talking about. How about coming up with some decent arguments instead of ad hominem attacks, rhetoric, and falsehoods?

Philip, I would have to agree with your assumption about Gulik5's example not falsifiying evolution. Gulik5’s example is a little off, in that the extinction date of T-Rex would be moved if the human were to be found in one’s mouth. However, if a human fossil were to be found in a Paleozoic stratum then evolution would be falsified due to mammals not being around at that point and certainly not humans. This is a pretty clear example.

The Talk Origins archive has been pieced together, that is true, however the research cited in the archive is where the real meat is. Scientists often are too technical for the layman therefore difficult to read and understand. As such it would be better if talk origins would clarify some of the research like a layman’s abstract if you will of the research.

The ISSR statement, the discovery institute does fund research for ID. Since they are a non-profit you can review their income and how much they are funding. In 2003 they had an income of 4.1 million and were offering research grants. They even have their own lab set up for research. It is just that the ID community has yet to publish anything or even announce the intent to publish any work. I would disagree with the comment that ID is not aiming to drive a wedge between science and religion, a document was leaked from the discovery institute entitled the wedge strategy that basically stated just that to drive a wedge between science and religion. This document is freely searchable on line and the discovery institute happens to have the big names of ID at their helm so there is no denying the wedge strategy is linked with ID’s motives.

Actually Phillip, I did mention that many new ideas in science are rejected, my string theory example. String theory is not fully accepted by the scientific community, and it has been available for the past 20 years. String theory did not have to go to other avenues, it stayed with academia; who were reviewing it and allowing for peer reviews until something really workable could come about from it before it was released to the general populous. In fact, it still is not taught in schools because of its shakiness. As I pointed out above, why would ID circumvent this process and go straight to the schools? ID is allowed to be discussed in the scientific community; it is often not discussed since there are no proposed hypothetical mechanisms for how ID occurs. In fact many scientists have been asking this (the hypothetical mechanisms) for several years now, to which those proponents of ID have yet to respond.

Phillip, as for indoctrination, I tell my students (I am a PhD candidate) to keep an open mind because science changes as new discoveries are made. However, when something has been shown to be upheld through much testing and is a basis for fundamental understanding of a concept then it would be folly to tell the student to keep an open mind when the evidence is so one-sided. To do so would offer more confusion than absolution this would defeat the purpose of learning. An example would be the simple physics of gravity, there are many different ideas surrounding gravity however in a physic’s course in high school one would find the most fundamental understanding of what gravity does, not how it really works. Same with evolution, in high school biology a person finds what evolution does, not how it works. You do not get into that until some very specific high level courses in the biological sciences, just as you would with gravity being found in higher level physics courses. No one questions gravity being taught or labels it as indoctrination however evolution is labeled as such even when its premise is just as important to understanding higher level biology as gravity is to understanding higher level physics.

I would like to continue this converstation but I do not wish to abuse the allowence that EdPoor gave me by unblocking my account. So I shall finish up my work on a couple of articles.--Able806 10:32, 10 April 2008 (EDT)

If a human fossil were to be found in a Paleozoic stratum, and that couldn't be explained away by intrusive burial or something, then most likely the stratum would be reclassified so that it wasn't Paleozoic. Of course, I can't claim that with certainty, but you can't deny it with certainty either. We'd both have to wait and see. But as the falsifiability of evolution page documents, tests that supposedly would falsify evolution have been found to have passed (failed?) (e.g. magnets), yet evolution continues on as though nothing happened. So I would not be convinced that a human fossil found in Paleozoic stratum would succeed either—some way of accommodating it would be found (as I'd expect, actually. I don't expect any single discovery would falsify evolution).

I accept that the Talk.Origins arguments are layman's versions, but I don't really accept that they can therefore make them so brief that one is unable to determine that they really do have an argument. And I've seen many arguments on Talk.Origins that simply do not stand up to scrutiny.

Initially I guess I overstated the ID research issue a bit. There is, as I later said, some funding available (although, as I also said, the funds available are a drop in the bucket compared to evolutionary research). Also, I'm more familiar with creationist research than ID research, and there has been some of that, and it has been published (in creationist publications, of course, because mainstream publications refuse to touch it for ideological reasons).

I've just had a quick read of the Wedge Document, and I can't see anything in there about driving a wedge between science and religion. Perhaps you could point out to me the exact part?

There's a difference between "not fully accepted" (which you didn't mention when you mentioned string theory) and "rejected". And as you said, string theory did not "have to" go to other avenues. It was allowed to be discussed in the scientific journals. But you yourself say that ID should not be, but should be discussed in a theological setting. ID did not "circumvent" that process, but was barred from that process. It is not allowed to be discussed. Just see the uproar when an ID paper was published in a peer-reviewed journal. The journal said that they would never do so again!

Evolution has not "been shown to be upheld through much testing and is a basis for fundamental understanding of a concept". That's just evolutionist rhetoric. The difference between gravity and evolution (why does that comparison come up so often?? At least I can keep using the same reply!) is that gravity is observed, unlike molecules-to-man evolution. Also, who disagrees with gravity? Creation and ID are a small minority view, but not that small. That is, there are thousands or tens of thousands of scientists who agree with creation and/or ID. And giving students both sides of this issue and explaining how to determine which is the better explanation would actually be a very good teaching approach.

Thanks for actually addressing the points that I made, and for doing so civilly. Too often critics are derogatory and keep throwing up new objections without actually addressing the responses that have been made.

Actually, Creationism is a minority view. Just about every organized group of Christians outside the United States (and most fo the ones inside) are perfectly OK with believing in both the Bible and that "when God made Man, He used a Monkey to do it."

Let me quote the Wedge Document: However, we are convinced that in order to defeat materialism, we must cut it off at its source. That source is scientific materialism.[1] Never mind that "god did it" makes for a LOUSY scientific theory, and has never made anything useful the way Scientific Materialism has--polio vaccine, light bulbs, neutron bombs. All of which work fine even if you don't have any Faith in them.

And on the acedemic front, there are more scientists named Steve who support evolution than there are Creationist/ID scientists, period. :) --Gulik5 12:53, 10 April 2008 (EDT)

Roughly 50% of Americans believe that man was created, not evolved, so I'm not so sure that your claim of it being a minority view is correct. But neither am I sure what your point was there, because I never claimed it to be the majority view.

Similarly, although many Christians outside the U.S. are prepared to accept (theistic) evolution, I'm by no means convinced that most accept the evolution of man from a monkey.

You are confusing "scientific materialism" with "science". "Materialism" means a number of things, including being overly concerned with having possessions. In the realm of science, "materialism" (i.e. "scientific materialism") is the belief that matter is all there is; i.e., there is no supernatural. It is science (founded on Christian principles) that has produce the polio vaccine, light bulbs, and neutron bombs, not scientific materialism.

I've never denied that evolutionists vastly outnumber creationists and ID proponents. But science is not a popularity contest. And the number of scientists who signed the Project Steve list is smaller than the number of creationist scientists. However, you're really comparing one incomplete list with another incomplete list, which proves nothing.

And does this post indicate that you are dropping your attempt to show that evolution is falsifiable? I guess you noted that even fellow-evolutionist Able806 said that your example didn't work.

In the realm of science, "materialism" (i.e. "scientific materialism") is the belief that matter is all there is; i.e., there is no supernatural. It is science (founded on Christian principles) that has produce the polio vaccine, light bulbs, and neutron bombs, not scientific materialism.

OOooookay. First of all, where in the Bible do you see ANYTHING that sounds even remotely like the scientific method? I must've missed that bit. Secondly, science, by definition, HAS to be about the "natural", because there's no such thing as the "supernatural". Once something occurs, it is part of nature. If an angel were to visit earth, it would have mass, chemical composition, body heat, would show up on cameras (or be making ANOTHER Miracle by NOT showing up) and could (theoretically) be quizzed about Heaven.

One of the basic, fundamental concepts of science is reproduceability. If an experiment can't be replicated, it's no good. This, in turn is based on the idea that the fundamental physical principles of of the universe are invariant, and that the universe is not deliberately trying to fool us.

I'm by no means convinced that most accept the evolution of man from a monkey. Good thing that's not how it's supposed to have happened, then. (Both Homo Sapiens and Cercopithecoidea evolved from a common ancestor, long, looong ago.) Considering how long you've been arguing this stuff, you could at least get the details right.

You said: And does this post indicate that you are dropping your attempt to show that evolution is falsifiable? I guess you noted that even fellow-evolutionist Able806 said that your example didn't work.

Uh, no, since Able immediately provided an example of a way to falsify evolution that's better than mine. He said: However, if a human fossil were to be found in a Paleozoic stratum then evolution would be falsified due to mammals not being around at that point and certainly not humans. This is a pretty clear example. Did you actually read what he wrote, or just skim it for mineable quotes?

Another good way to falsify evolution might be a sudden, massive mutation--like a human being spontaneously growing semifunctional feathered wings. That would throw a serious monkey-wrench in the whole 'no irreducible complexity' thing. --Gulik5 02:28, 12 April 2008 (EDT)